Say you've always wanted to be a fashion designer, and you've just hit upon the kind of blue-moon idea that could get you there: an ingenious—if you do say so yourself—jumpsuit that's actually user-friendly. How, beyond the old sewing-machine-at-the-kitchen-table routine, are you going to get that jumpsuit onto the women you know would love it? Just hire someone to make a sample (usually for thousands of dollars); find a factory (probably in China); and persuade a retailer to sell it or start your own online shop. Easy, right?

In the era of feature films edited on iMovie and studio-quality albums recorded with GarageBand, sooner or later someone was bound to find a simpler way. Launched this past spring, BYCO (short for "By Company") aims to hack the ready-to-wear world by solving the problems—both financial and logistical—that can stop a would-be designer in her tracks. Whether you're an independent designer with your own label who lacks the big orders needed to meet manufacturing minimums, or just a creative type with no clue how to get started, all you need, really, is a very basic drawing. BYCO will handle the rest.

"The line between being a designer and starting a small business is really tricky," says BYCO cofounder Jesse Finkelstein, who knows whereof he speaks: He started in retailing and manufacturing at his New York City–based women's and menswear label, JF & Son, before leaving to bootstrap the new start-up with his sister, Meredith, a former financial engineer at Morgan Stanley. "Producing garments and accessing resources, even just buying fabrics, is surprisingly difficult," Finkelstein says. "At a certain point, I started wondering, Is there some way to let designers just focus on what they do best and take care of the rest of the process—sampling, production, distribution, and, to some extent, sales—for them?"

The premise inspired ELLE to propose an idea of our own: Why not invite the most talented people we know—our readers—to give BYCO a spin? In the September issue, we announced the first ELLE x BYCO design challenge. More than 250 entries poured in—from Hong Kong to New Zealand to Los Angeles, you sent us sketches for party dresses, bomber jackets, office-appropriate separates, and more. We whittled the list down to 25 designs, which were put to a vote on ELLE.com. From five finalists, our fashion editors selected a winner: the easy-to-wear, sleek yet deceptively clever Hemdhose jumpsuit in gray silk crepe and black washed silk by reader Nicole Meléndez.

Here's how BYCO works: Designers upload a drawing, then specify every detail from fabrics to buttons on a standardized template that "makes the process totally transparent—it breaks each option down so you see exactly what you're paying for," says Meredith Finkelstein. BYCO then sends this information off to the Shanghai factory it owns and operates. There are three options: bespoke, for those who want a custom piece; sample, for designers who want to prototype designs (average sample cost is $250, but prices vary by complexity of the design and fabric); and production, for designers who want to make a larger quantity of a piece to sell on their own or through BYCO's retail site.

That's the other side of the process: BYCO also sells a curated selection of the products they manufacture—chosen by the Finkelsteins and their team—on the site. Designers get 20 percent of total sales and also retain the copyright. The majority of pieces run between $100 and $300—a relative bargain for a limited-edition creation from an emerging designer, not to mention the chance for fashion fans to observe the design process from sketch to finished product.

The overall aesthetic of the BYCO shop is clean, urban, modern; the simpler the design, the better it tends to fare—and dresses are the best-sellers. That said, Finkelstein is eager to point out that there are very few limits to what BYCO can produce: So that ornate, embellished gown you have in mind may not find its way onto BYCO's retail space, but that doesn't mean they won't make it just for you.

"We didn't anticipate how diverse the needs of our users would be, and how each would approach working with BYCO differently. It's so cool," Finkelstein says. "Some people just want a custom piece, a dress for a wedding or something. Then there are designers who already have their own retail outlets and just want to use us for sampling or take advantage of our other production resources. As it turns out, the designers looking to sell their items on our shop are only a fraction of who we're working with."

Winning the ELLE challenge, says Meléndez, "is kind of unreal." The 27-year-old grew up in Puerto Rico and moved to the U.S. in 2007 to study merchandising management and design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Now she works at High Fashion Group, a manufacturer for brands such as Theory and Helmut Lang. She may not be a fashion newbie, but Meléndez knows the challenges inherent in establishing her own name as a designer. "I've always worked on my own designs in my spare time," she says. "It's a great outlet for the creativity that I don't necessarily get to release in my day-to-day duties at the office."

On a trip to Frankfurt this past September, Meléndez was inspired by the practicality of undergarments in early-1900s Germany. Hemdhose translates as "union suit" in German, referring to a kind of long underwear once made from featherweight silk. "I'm constantly drawn to the idea of reinventing officewear—in many ways, it's become really boring," the designer says. "For a modern woman, the jumpsuit is functional, easy, and chic. But I needed to figure out how to push the construction of the garment forward." So she set out to make the jumpsuit more user-friendly, incorporating snaps that detach top from bottom.

Typical of most sample makers, BYCO didn't ace Meléndez's design on the first go. But revisions are built into their process. After her design was pinged off to Shanghai, she was sent photos of the first sample. "There were quite a few things here and there that needed change and refinement," Meléndez says: The pants draped at the inseam, the neckline was a scoop instead of a crew neck, and the snaps needed fabric covers. Meléndez was also able to meet with Finkelstein at BYCO's New York City headquarters to test out the fabric swatches she had chosen. Once those fixes were registered, turnaround was quick—within a week, Meléndez received images of the final sample via e-mail so she could make last-minute adjustments before final production.

The process was remarkably seamless, considering that it chiefly took place online. "I was so happy with the teamwork," Meléndez says. After a few rounds of back-and-forth e-mails, the factory produced the final prototype and sent it to New York in a matter of days.

BYCO prides itself on communicating with designers. "There are situations where we do have to turn designers away if we can't understand their design at all," Finkelstein admits. "But we place a high premium on understanding new ways of construction and being open to aesthetics that may not necessarily appeal to our individual tastes. In the end, we don't know what's going to sell or not, and we don't want to limit our production to whatever submissions fall under the 'BYCO.com aesthetic.' Our goal is to become a place where as many different designs can become a reality as possible."